Retribution
by NeonZangetsu
Summary: Left with naught but his pride and the clothes on his back, so too, is he left to rot after a failed assignment. But what cannot kill you can only make you stronger. As the world of One Piece is about to realize, the hard way. NarutoxHAREM! Lemon, Fluff.


**A/N: Bad news guys and gals. I'm sick. REALLY sick. I won't go into details, but, in part of my illness, I felt obligated to give you all a little something something to show that, despite my degenerating health, my mind is still as sharp as ever. I really hope you enjoy this, and, I apologize if any of you get lost in translation.**

_The Bloodbath_

Around him mermen were dying horribly.

One's stomach had swollen to three times its normal size, and he was still reaching into the air, as if shoving food down his throat. Another guard was purple-faced, screaming at someone who wasn't there, but he was no longer screaming words. His voice was a wreck and every once and a while he coughed blood flew out of his mouth but he never stopped shrieking. Still another was shrieking as though the hounds of hell were hot on his heels, crying "Mine! It's mine!" and beating the stone walls of the gaol as though they were attacking him.

Others were lying down, dead, with no indication of what had killed them. And still a lone merman assailed the wall with his fists; weeping and sobbing and spitting, all semblance of sanity long since lost to him. His hands were bloody stumps, ruined, but he never, ever, stopped. Many had been killed by one means or another, but some had been scorched with fire or exploded. The walls ran red with their fresh blood.

The gate had been blown apart during their entrance, and a long figure waded through the dead and the dying. He paused, checking for survivors, scouring the fiflth and grime with what could only be considered as sheer digust and disdain. Blood dribbled from his left hand. Blood amongst the carnage and chaos. It ran thick and seeped into the floor at his feet, a steady pitter patter that created an all too eerie sound in the sunlight.

_"Damn you to hell human!"_

Tearing his sapphiric gaze painfully town away from the stain that spattered the debris, he brought the full might of his glare to bear upon he who had spoken. And his arms still leaked blood. Tears of blood, perhaps, almost as if he were weeping for those perished within the once pristine Arlong Park.

"You wouldn't happen to be Arlong by any chance, would you?" This directed at the prone from of a fishman at the Marine's feet. A rhetorical question really, who else would have the gall to attempt a takeover of Cocyashi village? Leaving his own questioned unanswered, he bent to one knee, his fingers closing about the battered body of the one he had beaten. Rather, his throat. Hoisting the huge merman high despite the height difference between them, the blond shook him roughly.

"Are you?" He repeated pleasantly. "If so, Kizaru-sempai and I would like to be having a word with you." He let his gaze drift over the smoldering ruins their battle had created; lingering purposefully upon the shattered sign that dangled haphazardly just above the bay pool.

Arlong spat a bloody gob onto the pristine white jacket that hung from the youth's shoulders.

"Go...to...hell!"

Likewise his jacket, once the proud white and gold tassels of a Marine Admiral, had been soaked crimson. Whether from battles past or present, it certainly did not match the sails of the ship stationed at the harbor, its flawless white sheets just within range of human eyesight. _A Marine flagship._ Just visible beyond the horizon. But none of this mattered to the youth, who seemed to be somewhere in his late teens to early though the strange whisker marks that tripled each cheek seemed to strongly suggest otherwise.

All of that changed in an instant.

_"Hell?"_ The Marine blinked lazily, the fingers of his hand arching backward until they formed an iron point. For a moment the blood on his hand began to flow more freely, almost as if were being taken and physically manipulated. For this was the truth of it. Had any of the lower rank-and-file marines been present to witness the grisly spectacle, they would have witnessed the strangest of sights. In the span of a hearbeat, the blonde's hand was covered in blood and become something...

_...monstrous._

"You know nothing of hell." The blond marine chastised the merman pleasantly. "Pirate scum." What had once been his right hand, his free hand, clacked its claws together. Five finger, what a human hand should have, were somehow still present within the ghoulish hand that stretched and yawned before the flabergasted face of the fishman. "The realm of underwater is what I call to be be hell and you claim to be heaven! Oh no no no..._You're off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be monsters!_"

"W-What in the name of god are you!" Try as he might, the notorious fishman priate could not conceal his squeamishness as the blood trickled over his chest; the insidious vice constricting its hold. In a matter of moments, the unamed marine had rendered him all but speechless. This man, the one who had singlehandely marched into Arlong Park and laid waste to everyone and everything. Sparing no fishman, be they young or old, yet he showed quarter to the villagers.

What in the name of creation was a vice-admiral doing here?

"Uzumaki D. Naruto!" The Marine snapped back. "Oops, you weren't asking my name, were you?"

Arlong stared mutely at the grotesque limb.

"Hmm? This? This my good man, is the power of the Ketsu Ketsu no mi. The Blood Blood fruit. I suppose I could tell you how it lets me freely manipulate my blood and what-not _but,"_ He made a snipping motion with the hand; simultaneously releasing his hold on Arlong as he did so. Seconds after the fact, the merman's right arm thumped to the deck, rolled, and plunged into the water. Dumbstruck and now very much lacking an arm, the infamous captain of the mermen could only blink, his mouth working wordlessly as the recently promoted vice-admiral glared him down.

"_Your head or my heading."_ He commanded tersely. "By the Powers, I'll have me one or the other, I don't care which!"

"Dead men tell no tales." Arlong snarled suddenly, his lips quirking in defiance. "Kill me if you have the gall then, human! But you'll never have my maps! I know all about your kind! You don't have a heartless bone in your body, you no good slimy sack-"

"Eh?" The Marine blinked, momentarily nonplussed. "I'm after a _map_ not some-

"LIAR!" Arlong bellowed. "You no good piece of human garbage-

_Ba-dump._

_"Snip."_ He made a closing motion with his hand, and Arlong never finished that sentence. Decapitated, his body slumped to the soil, spurting blood at the neckline. A swift kick in the chest put and end to that and hurtled the corpse back into the waters where it belonged. It sank out of sight. Sinking into a cloud of scarlet, the unamed marine watched him go for a moment longer before he performed a sudden and abrupt bow to the waters, succeeded immediately thereafter by a viscious about face.

"You can come out now!" He announced cheerily, an even stranger change in character taking lace now that the mysterious battle had finally reached its conclusion. "You were watching me that whole entire time right?" When the silence stretched through the park, he waited for a moment. _Longer._ Longer still. _And still nothing. _At last, just as his patience began to wane, the sound of footfalls reached his ears and turned his world upside down.

...H-Hai."

Naruto took in large, clear eyes, perfectly coifed hair, clear skin, full lips narrow waist, and lean, firm curves. Well that was what he could see, considering that she was wearing a heavy jacket. But this jacket was usually zipped up, not tied tight around her waist, and a figure he hadn't see before. Sapphire met lavender in that instant and one gave a small cry. Uzumaki D Naruto the marine, the hero, the executioner of Arlong, offered a series of slow blinks as she emerged from her chosen place of refuge.

_'Holy..._

The poor thing, she was barely even standing.

"Ehehehe...you saw all of that, didn't you?" He scrubbed at the back of his head with a hand. With that simply gesture, the blood pooled back into his wrist, the fox-like claw slither shut as the wound closed behind it. The girl_-poor lass, she couldn't have been any older than eighteen-_followed the trail of crimson and swallowed but once. Any further attempt to approach her were likewise fruitless; for every step he too forward, she skittered three backward.

Finally, he paused.

"Whoa, hey." The marine raised his arms placatingly. "I'm not a pirate, well, not anymore. Gah...wait! What I'm trying to say is...I'm not your enemy."

She ceased her retreat, but maintained her silent vigil all the same.

"You...defeated them?" She spoke; it was a lighty, airy whisper. Wresting herself away from the confusion and exultation, she pushed two fingers together hesitantly. "A-All of them?" She glanced to and fro, her gaze sweeping across the prone forms of those mermen who still lived and those unfortunate few who did not.

"Yup!" He chimed cheerily.

"But...why?" she asked meekly.

"Because," And here his face did harden, "They deserved it." He swung an arm outward, fingers thrust for the gate; and the utter desolation that filled the occupied island. "Each of them. All of them! I can't stand the sight of it, and not just _mermen!_ Its pirates like these guys that be the cause of _all_ this blasted chaos! They're like a disease! _A taint!_ All of them!" Abruptly, his features softened again, leaving no trace of the cold-blooded threats he had made. "I didn't just do all of this for you, ya know; but because it was the right thing. I have a map to the Grand Line, I'll be able to tear out the root of piracy altogether. I'll be the one to find this One Piece. And I, _I_ will be the one to burn it to the ground."

"Ano...

"Oops!" He laughed aloud. "I'm sorry! I got carried away didn't I?"

"Vice-Admiral Naruto!"

"Huh?" The blond turned, his visage half-shaded, just enough to expose an unamused orb of sapphire. Appearing behind him in the ruined square, a charigned marine offered him a den-den mushi. His expression immediately sombered as he heard the voice on the opposite end.

"Hello?" He began, only to cringe immediately.

"What...no...yes...I've apprehended Arlong's crew...minus one death and one escapee." Here he blinked. "Pardon? The strawhats? No, sir. Not a trace of them sir, sorry."

A muffled shout could be heard on the other end.

"No need to shout." Naruto chastised sternly. "Kizaru-sempai and I have just finished mopping up the last of them."

Another muffled shriek echoed through the receiver.

"_As has been the case before, I am oddly compelled to listen to you._" He mumbled blackly, jamming the receiver down in an instant before further protest could be given. He exhaled violently, sweeping his hand through his hair; inadvertantly staining it crimson in the proccess.

"Well, I have my new orders." He mumbled beneath his breath. "It was a pleasure meeting you miss...

...Hinata." the girl supplied meekly.

"Naruto." The Marine extended his hand briskly. "It was a pleasure to meet you then, miss Hinata!"

She blinked, staring at his hand as though it were the strangest thing in the world.

"Ahaha...you're supposed to shake." Naruto ammended, peering at her for the first time.

She was fairhaired, larged eyed, and with a delicate point to her chin. Not full figured but certainly not petite either. As far as most women went she was _beautiful_, but then again, Naruto's definition of beauty still had a ways to go, all things considered. Regardless of the fact, he found his mouth working on the words that defied him; remaining rooted in his mouth. He forced the smile back into place and awaited her eventual reply so he could return to port...

...and hopefully banish these visions of her from his head.

It suddenly occurred to her that she'd barely spoken two words to the boy. Furthermore, Naruto was looking at her with a look of such intense excitement, that she just couldn't bear to refuse what he might say, no matter how ludicrous it might be. She glanced about, but found naught a soul; save for the marine that was still holding the den-den mushi. She did her best to paint her face with clarity and failed utterly; because as she frantically seized his wrist and pulled him into a furious embrace.

"Thank you!"

After a while he realized that she was shaking inside his oversized cloak, and she failed to stifle a sob. He frowned over her shoulder, trying to decide if it was kinder to leave her to her thoughts for a time, distract her with meaningless conversation, or draw her out and let her tell her story. Half an hour ago, he hadn't even known her. Now he found himself in the awkward position of comforting her and quite frankly, such a task was terrifying.

Naruto fumed at himself.

She'd seen more murder and cruelty in a few hours than most people do in a lifetime. And he'd certainly contributed to it with his furious skirmish on the beach. All she knew of him was that he'd stolen her out of a pirate camp, savagely cutting down anyone in his path. Regardless of the reasons he gave for his actions, she had to wonder whether his motives were truly honorable or not. And he was a marine for crissakes!

Not knowing what to do, he squeezed her and said,

"It's over now, Hinata."

She nodded but did not answer. She held him tighter. Such strength! He felt a rib begin to crack under the strain of her renewed vice; the likes of which was almost enough to drive the oxygen from his lungs and leave him altogether breathless. She fisted her hands into the lappels of his jacket; her tears doing more damage than any violence she could ever commit. Abashed by her actions and what felt like butterflies boiling in his stomach, the blond contented himself; he would wait as long as neccessary.

"Oi...I'll take you to a doctor." He supplied weakly, doing his best to untangle himself from the snifling vixen. "You're covered in cuts and bruises. Can you-

He let the question die on his lips when Hinata stumbled.

"I...I can't walk." She confessed, her glance shieing to her battered right leg.

"Then I'll carry you." Naruto answered swiftly. "Up we go!"

"Eep!"

Hinata nodded, even weaker as he reluctantly scooped her up. She slumped against him, flushing as he placed a hand behind her legs in an effort to steady himself. Kami she was light! Hoisting her up against his back, he promptly nodded to the marine, his subordinate immediately stiffening beneath the vice-admiral's attention.

"Bring the medic."

"But sir, your promotion-

"Is irrelevant." Naruto snapped back at the mention of the upcoming ceremony. "Now, move it sailor!

"SIR!" The man saluted in comical fashion and immediately darted northward; dispersing a cloud of dust in his wake as he made for the ship. No sooner had he done so than Naruto kicked off the soles of his shoes, the socks following soon therafter. Left barefoot, he immediately wrapped his feet in what looked like a ridiculous pair of skates, created entirely from his own blood. Wincing as he opened his heel against a sharp rock, the bond finished the crafting and began to pick up speed.

"Hold tight." He muttered to himself, grimacing when Hinata quietly complied. He pushed past the wind and approaching clouds as they made all due haste for the port. The words Loguetown, his next assigned destination, burned like a branded iron in the back of his mind. He resolved to do all he could for his erstwhile passenger, but before that, there was the matter of Nezumi. He had every single intention of slaughtering that weasel-faced imp before he left this island, though he intended to spare Hinata the sight of that before his departure.

_'Cripes, I'm already getting attached to her...damnit!'_

And thus his first true friendship was forged.

**A/N: ZYAHAHAHAHA! NaruxHina rulez! (Cough) Ha! Hope everyone enjoyed this! I'm not quite sure whether to classify Naruto as a Paramecia or a Logia, given that Blood could count as either, as its capabilities are all of utterly limitless. Sorry for the short chapter, the rest will be much much much longer! And, what is this of Naruto's past? Who knows? Perhaps not even me! LOL Regardless, I hope you enjoyed it and feel free to review and vote on the afformentioned issue and, of course...WHO WILL BE IN THE HAREM!**


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